Evolutionary Medicine Summer School

9th - 13th July 2012

Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom

Evolutionary Medicine offers a refreshing new perspective on health and disease using basic principles from evolutionary biology. The field emerged in 1991 when the evolutionary biologist, George C Williams, and psychiatrist, Dr Randolph Nesse, wrote a seminal article called “The Dawn of Darwinian Medicine” for the Quarterly Review of Biology. Since then the field has rapidly expanded.

Evolutionary Medicine has become especially relevant given our contemporary environments that are far removed from those to which we adapted in the past, and where conditions such as depression, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases pose significant problems. The Summer School will illustrate the basic biological principles underpinning Evolutionary Medicine, and will cover applications that have particular relevance for medical doctors. The course also provides 25 hours of CPD accreditation that can be used towards revalidation.